Sunday, July 26, 2015

Brain to Books Blog Tour: Elle Klass

Fast Facts:

Bio

Elle was born in world in Redwood City, California and spent her childhood growing up in the fabulous San Francisco Bay Area. She is an avid San Francisco Forty Niners fan. She has raised two beautiful daughters, and currently resides in Florida. For fun she reads, spends time at the beach, travels, and enjoys time with her favorite friends, and family. She is a night-owl and spends the time writing.

Blurb

A disturbance at her neighbor's house piques Eilida’s curiosity. What she discovers is so shocking it sends her running through the mountainous woods during a thunderstorm. She slips on the wet ground, plummets down Mount Wilde, and slams into a large boulder beside River Freedom. Eilida is transported to Lyden, where Sunshine, a receptionist at the local paper becomes engrossed in her story. The further Sunshine delves into Eilida’s life the more entangled their lives become. Paranormal events, frightening dreams, and terror filled memories draw the women together into an unthinkable web of horror.

Review

Eilida suffers from amnesia, the result of a head injury when she frantically runs away from a horrific murder scene. While Eilida recuperates in the hospital, Sunshine, a local newspaper receptionist, not only begins to have strange dreams and paranormal occurrences connected to Eilida’s past, but also takes on Eilida’s character at times. After further investigation including sneaking into Eilida’s hospital room, Sunshine concludes that she must be Eilida’s twin. Yet to confirm her theory, Sunshine has to retrace Eilida’s steps, beginning with the murder investigation. As the puzzle pieces come together slowly, the truth unfolds. But it is more surreal than one can only imagine.

Rising author Elle Klass takes the paranormal to a different level in her latest novel. While there are scenes reminiscent of the movie The Sixth Sense, Klass draws readers into the dark and disturbing world of two young women. Eilida is desperately trying to recall her memory. Concurrently, Sunshine, who appears to be quite a levelheaded gal on the cusp of marriage, begins seeing people that no one else sees—not to mention that the weather suddenly turns stormy with her apparitions. But before a scrolling marquee of “I see dead people” runs across reader’s thoughts, Klass’s plot splits into different directions—between Sunshine’s seemingly split personality and her relationship with one guy (Jay) while she prepares to marry another (Jerry), her involvement in the murder investigation, and her delving into parapsychology and hypnosis in the hope of getting answers to her personal connection with Eilida.

In the first book in The Ruthless Storm Trilogy, Klass’s sinister tale is replete with a small but well-developed cast, many of whom function as foils to enhance the principal characters, Eilida and Sunshine. Of course, included in the mix are a tight handful of antagonists who throw all sorts of twists and turns into the plot. Speaking of twists and turns, Klass’s narrative includes a unique point-of-view design. Alternating between the first-person viewpoints of Eilida and Sunshine, and a third-person unnamed narrator, Klass cuts down the confusion between the various voices and adds nuance in the process to those title changes by replacing each woman’s name with symbols: Eilida (◊◊◊◊◊) and Sunshine (☼☼☼☼☼). While all of these elements keep the plot flowing, Klass also throws in a few hot and steamy romance scenes, as well as quirky but eye-catching word plays, such as Dr. Jekal, Eilida’s chemistry professor, and Dr. Weered, Sunshine’s hypnotist.

An absolute thriller from beginning to end, Eye of the Storm: Eilida’s Tragedy closes with a cliffhanger that will keep readers anxiously waiting for its upcoming sequel, Calm Before The Storm: Evan’s Sins.

Anita Lock San Francisco Book Review

Excerpt

I pulled out a pair of store bought cutoffs with premade bleach stains and a purple tank with a built in bra out of my suitcase. The tank squeezed my boobs together and allowed a nice cleavage view. In front of the bathroom mirror I took off my makeup and pulled the pin holding up my hair. As it fell to my shoulders, it grew dark and I was no longer looking at me but Eilida. My heart moved into my throat and I staggered backwards and whispered, “Are you my ghost?”

Guardedly, I stepped back to the mirror and ran my finger across its surface. The mirror was solid and the reflection now my own. Shaking off the freakiness, I finished brushing my hair and gathered it into a high pony tail without the use of the mirror then slipped on my new flip flops. I felt comfortable and thought I looked great. I rubbed lip gloss across my lips and puckered. Not yet ready to look in the mirror again for fear of seeing the ghost, I hoped the gloss covered my lips. A sudden wetness crept between my legs as my mind lingered on Jay.

The sun was beginning its downward journey to the horizon. Trails of colors filled the sky giving me an unforgettable drive to Jay’s. He lived on the second floor of a very ordinary looking building. It was brick like most other buildings in Chesterville and a staircase supporting a shaky wrought iron hand rail brought me to his door.

There were no potted plants or chairs outside, nothing that said I love my abode, but definitely said I’m a college science nerd. I knocked and when the door was opened a young man, not Jay, greeted me.

“What’s up, E?” He put his hand in the air which I instinctively knew to high five.

I’m not sure if it would register as the oddest part of the day, since today had been riddled with peculiarity, but I knew his name and responded without thought. It was like my actions were being controlled by a hidden remote.

High fiving, I responded, “Ely,” I drug the y sound out, “Ready to get my studying on.”

Another young man picked me up from behind and twirled me through the air before setting me down in front of him. “Let me look at that hair.”

He moved his head side to side and placed his hand in front of his mouth and then back to his side and responded, “It’s not really you. It hides that inner gloom you wear so well.”

Inner gloom, that’s what would best describe what I was quickly finding out about Eilida. “Evie, Evie, Evie can’t a girl try something new?” I asked. Knowing his name came as no surprise either.

Jay stepped into the room wearing nothing but a towel that hung below his waist and threatened to fall off baring the beauty underneath. His abs were chiseled which I hadn’t noticed the other night. I bounded towards him and jumped, curling my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist. Still the towel lingered. He returned my affection with a kiss and put me down grabbing my arm as he pulled me towards the bedroom. Unable to control myself I pulled the towel off and it dropped to the floor.

With a beguiling look of surprise, he hoisted me over his shoulder like a gunny sack and said, “That’s it! Look what you’ve done,” and closed the door behind us. Plopping me onto the bed he drove himself into me hard and passionately.

We studied most of the night away and took a short break long enough to go to Taco Express for quesadillas and ultimate tacos loaded with cheese, peppers, beef, onions, sour cream and possibly a few other ingredients.

I felt a type of kinship towards Ely and Evie which put me in a quandary and I asked myself, does Eilida have brothers or close cousins here? I didn’t think so, as they made no mention of any family that may link us, but it is a small town.

A bright light lurked behind the curtains and I pulled a pillow over my head realizing then that I was burrowed into the crook of Jay’s arm. Instead of gathering my clothes and leaving, I dragged the covers over my head and went back to sleep.

Sometime later the smell of coffee aroused my olfactory sensors. The scent brought back memories and I envisioned a young raven haired woman holding a small baby in one hand and a coffee mug in the other. Softly she placed the coffee onto a table while holding the baby up to the window. They were looking outside watching two young boys and a man. The man had no shirt on and his skin was a deep shade of brown. His torso bearing carved muscles. Beyond them was a vast ocean. Slowly the figures faded and I knew I had remembered something important. A past that grappled with my present and for that short time I was Eilida.

I turned to find Jay missing. I jolted out of his bed with the sudden revelation and feeling of crushing loneliness and wandered to the living room where I found Jay and Evie talking. Scents of pancakes, eggs and bacon wafted through the air, teasing my taste buds. I knew without a doubt, that Ely was cooking breakfast.

“You’re still here?” questioned Evie in a mocking tone. It had been the first time ever that I spent the night in bed with Jay. Eilida’s first time… A curious instinct that I knew that tidbit of information.

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